NATIONAL POLITICS

Amulya Ganguli on Vajpayee, the Tactical Liberal

Realizing that the "right man in the wrong party" epithet was beginning to reflect poorly on the BJP, its prime ministerial candidate has now chosen a new description, presenting himself as the fruit of a tree and saying that if the fruit is good, the tree also has to be good.

In the process of this transformation into being the "right man in the right party", A.B. Vajpayee may be gradually eroding the difference which seemed to exist, at least in the public mind, between him and the organization he represents. If this continues, he may not remain the moderate which he appears to be at the moment. Such a change, however, is perhaps unavoidable for, although Vajpayee was projected to highlight BJP's moderate image, the party's as well as the Sangh Parivar’s close identification with him will increasingly compel him to articulate views which cannot but undermine his liberal visage.

In his second run as the BJP's foremost leader, Vajpayee has been entrusted with the task of making the party more widely acceptable. To all appearances, he has taken up his new assignment with gusto. Perhaps the earlier failure still rankles and he wants to re-establish himself as the leading man in the organization, as he was for a long time till Advani overtook him with his Somnath-to-Ayodhya rath yatra. Perhaps he genuinely wants to mold the BJP in his own image and is not merely carrying out an order from the Nagpur bosses for tactical reasons, to be rescinded once the job of deceiving the people about the BJP's real nature is accomplished.

But whoever undertakes the task of superficially altering a perception runs the risk of transforming himself in the process... Instead of giving the BJP a kinder, gentler face, the moderate may become the hardliner. Some signs of this mutation are already visible. For instance, Vajpayee's first instinctive reaction to the Manohar Joshi Government's summary abolition of the Srikrishna Commission was that of a genuine liberal. A few weeks later, however, Vajpayee changed his tune, saying that although he had opposed the abolition, he had subsequently come to know about the supposed ill-effects of the commission's work. (The) absurdity is obvious. But Vajpayee, the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, had no option but to toe the party line. What is more, when as Prime Minister he called for the 'revival of the commission the main objective apparently was to avoid the imminent judicial strictures against the Joshi Government's decision.

Again, when asked in Mumbai about the recent felicitation for Nathuram Godse's brother and a fellow Vajpayee expressed relief that BJP workers had not participated in the function which he felt should not have taken place. But one would have expected a much more forthright condemnation from the celebrated orator and poet about a meeting where Gandhi's assassins were praised by representatives of the BJP's ally in Maharashtra.

But the most significant change in Vajpayee's attitude relates to the demolition of Babari Masjid, that crucial episode in Sangh Parivar’s politics. Vajpayee's anguish immediately after the event was apparent to all. "I was personally against Advaniji's rath yatra", he said ,"I was always against the decision to collect so many people in Ayodhya. But the BJP leaders were confident that they would be able to control the crowds."

He had no hesitation in admitting then that "I have far too many reservations on several issues and continue to feel differently from the party on many questions".

But the time when he felt "completely isolated" is over. He still acknowledges that the demolition should not have taken place, but the responsibility for what happened has been shifted from the rath yatra and the BJP leadership's failure to control the crowd to the law's delay in solving the Babari tangle.

What is more ominous, Vajpayee now seriously advances the argument of the kar sevaks justifiably losing patience because of prolonged legal wrangling to predict a similar fate for the Mathura and Varanasi shrines.

In essence, the RSS is much like the Broederbond, the ultra-right white brotherhood of South Africa during the apartheid period which provided the philosophical underpinning and motivating force to a community which felt threatened in a black continent. The saffron brotherhood fosters a similar spirit - a minority complex in a majority community as Vajpayee has been candid enough to admit - by articulating identical fears about the Hindus being under threat in their one and only country from religious groups which have other motherlands as well.

But the difficulty of implementing the sangh parivar's objective of safeguarding the Hindus is partly that not all Hindus feel threatened and indeed take pride in their country being home to so many cultures and religions, all of which contribute to the creation of a vibrant atmosphere so different from the closed societies. Having failed in its frontal assault on pluralism through a highlighting of the Hindu identity ("Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain") and demonisation of the minorities ("Hum panch, hamare pachas").  In his less constrained days he might have had a better chance of success in his mission to woo the unconstructed Hindus to the parivar's cause, for then his liberal views might have been seen as his own, and not a tactical ploy. His current task, however, of projecting these as his party's is an arduous one.

When he holds forth, therefore, with his customary eloquence on tolerance being the essence of Hinduism, he will be believed insofar as tolerance is undoubtedly the essence of Hinduism, but is it also the essence of the Parivar, given Golwalkar's anti-minority tirades: "Have those (Muslims) who remained here changed at least after that (partition)? Has their old hostility and murderous mood come to a halt at least now? It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriots overnight after the creation of Pakistan."

And this about Christians. "So long as the Christians here refuse to offer their first loyalty to the land of their birth they will remain here as hostiles and will have to be treated as such."

What kind of a fruit will such a tree yield?

(Source: The Indian Express, 26 June, 1996)